Second Chance
by Zamael
Summary: A privilege unlike any other bender who ever faced Amon in combat, Tarrlok did not lose his bending immediately. Contains spoilers for the finale.


Tarrlok dreamed. Or was it a memory? A mix of both, perhaps: decades after it had happened, he could no longer tell how much of this was genuine, and how much he had forgotten over the years and had been replaced with a more colourful version of his imagination.

Certainly he could not separate the two. It was all terrifying either way.

There was his brother, the last time he had seen him. And his father, the last time he had had any ambition for revenge, what had driven him for most of his life. And there was the pain... oh yes, he had been dreaming of the pain a fair bit over the years. He dreamed of his blood boiling in his veins, his body being twisted to angles it was not designed to go to, and his father laughing... had he laughed when it originally happened? He could not tell anymore...

But when it came his turn to bend, the memories faded away to background, replaced by pure fantasy... no. Not fantasy, but another memory, overlapping with the first. Noatak was no longer there: his brother did not wait for him to bloodbend him in turn - which he would refuse to do, as he had originally done, and as he always did when the memory haunted his dreams. Instead, there was a young woman, knocking him to the ground with earthbending, then approaching him with fire in her hands. "Still think I'm half-baked?", she roared.

And somewhere else, there was an echo, a construct of both memories, yet not a part of either: "Bloodbend her, Tarrlok!", his father yelled from somewhere. "You can't defeat her otherwise. You will lose, and you will fail to uphold my legacy!" And he wanted to yell back, that he did not want to do it, that he never wanted to inflict such pain to anyone... was he still a ruthless councilman, or had he regressed back to a boy? He was not sure.

But whether it was the echo of his father calling him weak, or the raging Avatar charging at him with fire, one of them pushed him over the edge, into bending her. And when her charge stopped, when an expression of anger and pride was changed into one of shock and horror, she reminded him of a wolf, not unlike those of his childhood.

And then she was Noatak again, as they were when they were children. Tarrlok screamed and wanted to stop the bloodbending, but could not... Noatak wore a mask now, pushed through the bending as if his younger brother was not doing it at all, and pressed a finger against his forehead...

Tarrlok woke up.

He was tired. Every place of him hurt, and whatever he was lying on was cold and hard, and shook regularly, giving him little respite or room to recover. He could still feel the bloodbending - whether this was of the dream, or of what had been done to him mere moments ago, he could not tell. His bending was gone.

As he gathered his senses and looked around, he recognized this a satomobile. His own satomobile, in fact, having been commandeered with its owner tossed where the Avatar had been. He was alone in the back, and in the front there was but one man, the driver. "So, you are awake," he said without turning back.

Tarrlok sat up against the wall, holding his pounding head, and focusing on the driver's seat, on the driver - his brother. When he finally got something out of his mouth, it was but a single, feeble word: "...How?"

"Waterbending has control over the blood cirquits, though which chi flows," Noatak responded plainly. "The chi blockers use pressure points to temporarily sever the victim's connection to the elements: for a skilled bloodbender, making it permanent is trivial."

"No, I meant..." He shook his head in an attempt to clear it up. As time passed, he found himself recovering quickly regardless, but all this was rather a shock to him. "...How can it be _you_?"

This time, the silence lasted some time. There was only the roar of the engine, the occasional bump when the tire hit a rock or a pothole. Then the other spoke: "Storm and snow are my element, and will not kill me, so I survived to reach the Earth Kingdom. Disgusted of my father, and his ideals, I hid my bending from others... and I was given more reason to it when I saw the oppression and tyranny of benders over nonbenders. I used subtle bloodbending to defeat them and take up the cause of the common man. I started to gather followers and disciples, especially when I taught myself to take the bending away for good. We learned chi-blocking, matters of technology, and eventually arrived to the Republic City. The rest you know."

"But you are a bender yourself," Tarrlok pointed out. "How can you... how can you preach against them while doing what you do?"

He gained no response. The brothers remained silent, and still, for many hours. But upon waking up completely, Tarrlok discovered something strange. He felt strangely alive... or rather, he did not feel dead inside, like he had hours ago, when his bending was gone. There was not much water here, so he spat on the floor, and focused on it.

The water rose up, as easily as it always had.

"So, you noticed," Noatak stated, breaking the silence.

"I can still bend."

"Yes." The driver nodded. "I did not take your bending away. I was hoping to see if I could make an... exception."

"What do you mean?" Tarrlok approached the hole separating him from his brother, confused.

"Come with me."

"What?"

The masked figure sighed. "You are my brother, Tarrlok. You understand me like no one else ever could. And you are a bloodbender, though with less talent than mine. I am the only one that can take people's bending away, aside from the Avatar, and there are many benders in the world: were I alone, it would take a long time indeed."

Tarrlok said nothing. He had not expected such an offer: indeed, mere hours ago he did not even know Amon would tolerate benders at all. "You still wish to rule the Republic City, and I will not stop you, so long as you help me," Noatak continued. "We can tell the people that you saw the light after your bending was taken away, was the first to meet the spirit after me, and received the same gift. And we can be together again, as brothers."

The reason the younger brother gave this any thought, did not respond instantly, could have been because he was seriously considering the offer. There had been good times with his brother in the past, after all. Or it could be because he was still trying to wrap his head around the very idea. Or, perhaps, there may have even been a small part of him that was afraid of losing his bending, willing to grasp at any opportunity to keep it, and keep being in power? Even he was not certain. But regardless, for reasons far outweighing these, in the end he said "No."

"Why not?" His brother sounded vaguely sad.

"...I have not changed my opinion from childhood. Especially now that you used it on me again. I do not wish to inflict that pain to anyone else if I can help it at all, and you would ask my help in taking the bending away from everybody in the world? With you and I on top, as the only benders left? That is not very equal in my head."

Minutes passed with no answer, then the vehicle stopped. The driver left his seat, and opened the backdoors: he was unmasked, giving Tarrlok his first good look of his brother since his disappearance. He looked pensive, a little disappointed, and rather sad. "Come."

Tarrlok did so. He was unbound, allowing him to walk freely. They were on a cliffside, facing Republic City in the distance. It was snowing, like it did when they had last seen each other, an the coming dawn was lighting up the landscape from behind them. Here they stood, and neither spoke for a long time: when someone did, it was the eldest, looking down at Amon's mask in his hand.

"Do you know how I feel, every day of my life, when I hide my face beneath this mask, and pretend to nonbenders that I am their savior? When I, having been convinced that bending is evil and needs to be eradicated, am nonetheless using it as my main weapon? And when I conquer the Republic City, doing exactly what our father wished us to do?" He looked back at his brother. "I am _everything_ that I hate in my life. But unlike you, I withstand it for the greater good, because I have work to do."

The mask was tossed aside to the ground, and Noatak faced Tarrlok fully, taking a stance. "If you do not wish to make the same sacrifice, brother, then you are still weak." A tear left his eye and slowly went down his cheek: noticing this was something of a shock to his younger brother, who for years had known him as emotionless and detached. "I give you this second chance, Tarrlok. Come with me. _Please._"

Tarrlok was left facing the city, and his eyes strayed to that direction, from his brother, for a bit... and it was then that he remembered his mother. He remembered her smile, her care, her love. He had no idea why it had come up under this sort of circumstances, but he understood what it meant. He took his stance as well, and turned back to Noatak. "I'm not the weak one, brother. Abandoning those that need you is weakness, not the other way around."

This was not the way he had thought for years - if ever. When he had first arrived in Republic City, he had thought it ripe for the picking, easy for him to establish himself on top. Never had a single thought of protecting it come to his mind, not until now... when he was facing his own brother. Irony was a cruel mistress, he thought. "I am sorry," Noatak said.

"So am I."

If any had witnessed the duel in the snow, outside the city, they would have seen nothing more than two men staring upon each other a small distance away. Like the great swordsmen of old, they seemed to merely test each other's spirit and determination - and like those ancient duels, it ended with one of them kneeling, knowing he had been defeated.

And this time, when Tarrlok lost his bending, it was for good.


End file.
